Scientists are looking for a replacement for rare earth metals by combining common elements

All modern electronics would simply not be possible without the use of components based on rare earth metals.

But as the name implies, rare earth elements are not so common in nature, and their extraction is quite expensive.

How we found an alternative to rare earth materials

A joint research team from Michigan, Lorraine and Canterbury has discovered a way to combine common elements among themselves and such Thus, I obtained compounds that, by their properties, are quite capable of completely replacing rare-earth components in the electronics of the future.

If we look at the periodic table of Mendeleev, we will see that materials such as indium and gallium (components often used in modern microelectronics) belong to the third group. It is also referred to as rare earth metals.

In order to obtain compounds that are in no way inferior to rare earth metals, molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) was applied. And a connection was obtained in the form of thin films by superimposing elements one on top of another with atomic precision.

Thanks to this approach, it was possible to obtain a compound using elements from groups II, IV, V, which include zinc, tin and nitrogen.

All these metals are incommensurably cheaper and much more accessible than rare-earth components, and the compounds obtained on their basis are in no way inferior in their properties to their rare analogs.

So, for example, a compound was obtained that can both emit and absorb a luminous flux, which allows its use in solar panels and LED lamps of a new type.

And if you replace zinc with magnesium in the new compound, then the luminous flux shifts to the blue and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum.

In addition, in the course of numerous experiments, it was found that the parameters of the components obtained can well be tuned by adding certain impurities.

What are the prospects of opening

The ability to fine-tune the parameters of the alloys obtained opens up broad prospects the use of new materials in the widest range of industries: from lighting to components supercomputers.

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